Case studies.
A quick glance at our history.
Web-based Text Messaging and Geo-location System
Developed for a commercial client, this web-based system enables the sending and receiving of text-messages (SMS texts) to and from contacts in an address book.
The system uses an innovative "tagging" system to enable flexible groupings of contacts, and provide a quick and easy way to message everyone in a group at once.
SMS correspondence is displayed to the user as a series of conversations, reflecting the cognitive model of a person-to-person dialogue, making picking up from previous messages trivial.
Role-based access control ensures only those with the necessary permission can perform each task, and a search system makes finding historical messages simple.
The system also has a powerful locate feature, enabling, with their permission, authenticated users to locate contacts geographically.
Police Asset Tracking System
Currently in use by a number of police forces across the UK, this system enables officers to mount sting operations and significantly improve crime detection rates.
Tracking devices are deployed in the field, and the system enables their monitoring and control from both the control room and mobile devices.
Communication between the system and deployed devices is performed via SMS text messages and, where available, GPRS data connections.
Devices may be monitored for their operational status and location. "Fences" can be erected around devices, with alarms being raised when a device is moved outside of the fence.
The system enables users to subscribe to operational alerts for notification via SMS text message and/or email.
Traffic England
This high-profile Highways Agency website fulfils the agency's remit for the dissemination to the public of the vast amounts of traffic information they collect.
A highly complex piece of software, this system is a sink for information from numerous data sources including RSS feeds, web services and a CORBA object feed.
Once collected, the system's application servers transform the raw data for rendering on the website on a map (Navteq/Nokia) and alternative schematic and tabular representations.
The website uses "pre-emptive caching" to minimise the computational load on the database-, application- and web-servers and ensure accurate and up-to-the-minute information is available almost immediately - even with huge user volume spikes.
Intelligence Management System
Developed as part of an Urgent Operational Requirement for the British Army, this intelligence management system enables soldiers to build-up a searchable database of intelligence material.
With workflow modelled upon an existing paper-based process, the system had the innovative feature of enabling intelligence reports to be linked semantically to further enhance the search capability.
Once deployed, soldiers spoke highly of the usability and utility of the system.
Content Management System
We developed a bespoke content management system, currently in use with the UK Highways Agency.
The customer indicated that the system would likely be extended in the future, making extensibility a key non-functional requirement.
The completed system made the addition of new content and content types trivial.
In technical jargon, the system used a bespoke managed type system implemented using custom attributes, reflection and an object-relational mapper.